New York is back at it against the Penguins following their 5-1 loss at PPG Paints Arena Sunday Night. Lots of unanswered questions as we start our Tuesday morning's as the Rangers had the day off yesterday to recover from the back to back weekend. However, one thing is certain and that is the Penguins are going to come into this game with the same intensity and energy as they did Sunday. This team has been going back and forth with wins and losses in the last ten games leading up to Sunday. With that win, they have now won two in a row meaning they'll be hungry to make it three. The Rangers need to come out hungry as well, as they look to get back on track.
As I said, a lot of question marks going into this game, most notably who will be in between the pipes for the Rangers. Alexandar Georgiev got off to a rough start Sunday allowing three goals in the span of two minutes and was relieved by Keith Kinkaid. Igor Sheshterkin has skated since his injury but is unlikely to be ready to go so soon. Will David Quinn look to get Georgiev's confidence back or will he ride Kinkaid who played well for the two periods against Pittsburgh?
The next big question is how the lines will play out. Colin Blackwell was a healthy scratch for Phil Di Giuseppe in Sundays game. Will Quinn look to get Blackwell back in the mix or will he ride with the same 12 forwards as Sunday? He could always look to go the 11 forwards and 7 defensemen route thanks to Brendan Smith's versatility but that's probably the least likely scenario. Another interesting note from last game was DQ moving Filip Chytil to the first line on the wing with Buchnevich and Mika Zibanjead. This resulted in Alexis Lafreniere on the third line with Gauthier and Rooney. While that first line looked good with Chytil and his play is certainly worthy of a promotion, getting him back in the face off circle and playing that center role is a key part of the Rangers future.
Kevin Rooney and Colin Blackwell's contributions to this team cannot be overstated. The fact that piecing together the line up is as difficult as it's been speaks volumes to their play. Going into this season, it seemed pretty obvious what the everyday lines should look like but these two have gone above and beyond making it very hard for the coaching staff. Someone who hasn't gone above and beyond however is Brett Howden. Despite being a key presence on our penalty kill, he is still abysmal as far as generating offense goes. It seems a little ridiculous to be questioning someone's future in the NHL at the young age of 22 but if Howden doesn't start producing soon, Colin Blackwell might need to take over his 4th line center role until Howden proves otherwise. Morgan Barron could be a factor closing the window on Howden as well and is worth a look in the NHL sometime this season as well.
Of course a key piece to the puzzle that fans may oftentimes forget with this season is players need to play a certain amount of games in order to be exposed in the expansion draft coming this off season. This is always going to be an underlying factor when it comes to who plays and who doesn't. Sure that doesn't necessarily help to win games, but you have to do what you have to do in this kind of season and at the end of the day, the Rangers are still looking toward the future. The plan for this organization isn't to win one Stanley Cup, it's to win multiple. As desperate fans are for this team to start winning games and making a strong playoff push, in the grand scheme of things, you can't possibly look at how this season has gone so far and be at all disappointed in the progress.
Puck drops shortly after 6 p.m. David Quinn will address the media this afternoon and we'll find out more definite answers on the line up later today. Look for the Rangers to play with a chip on their shoulder as they look to get back on track before shipping up to Boston.
Chris Feldman
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